Lemon Ricotta Waffles

This is one of those reposting-in-its-entirety moments, because this recipe is perfect.

[Picture please, Annalise!]

Grilled Peach Panzanella

Here is a summary of this lengthy recipe, which you should make because it involves chewy grilled bread, velvety grilled peaches, fresh cherry tomatoes, and basil, like so:

[Annalise is going to add the picture she took here!  She is visiting me and does not approve of my usual, crappy, overly-zoomed-in iphone pics.]

Ingredients:
One loaf of ciabatta or similar (the pop-it-in-your-oven kind from King Soopers is A-OK)
4 large peaches
2 cups cherry or grape tomatoes (or whatever tomatoes)
5 TB citrus-infused olive oil
3 TB apple cider vinegar
2 shallots
1 clove garlic
Large handful fresh basil
Salt & pepper & sugar

1.  Combine vinegar, finely sliced shallot, and a pinch each of salt and sugar and set aside.

2.  Halve or chop tomatoes, toss in 3 TB olive oil + salt + finely sliced garlic clove, and set aside.

3.  Slice bread loaf in half horizontally (so you separate the top of the loaf from the bottom of the loaf).  Brush with 1 TB oil, salt, and place on grill to toast.  When toasted, chop or tear into bite-sized pieces; toss with vinegar mixture, then with tomato mixture.

4.  Slice up peaches, toss in last TB olive oil + salt, and grill.  Once nicely roasted, toss them into the rest of the ingredients, add the basil (chopped), more salt and pepper if needed, and eat.  

Squash Tacos with Roasted Tomatoes and Cucumber Slaw

This was a CSA-user-upper kind of dinner, which I ate twice (once with spouse, once with mom and little sis!).  It tasted just fine.

Ingredients:

Tacos

2-3 summer squashes
2 small onions
1-2 jalapenos
2 ears of corn
Small head of garlic
2 TB butter
Cumin, cayenne, salt
4 medium-large garden tomatoes
Corn tortillas
Feta or queso fresco or goat cheese

Slaw

Fresh garden cucumbers
half a jalapeno
Small red onion
Juice of 4 limes
1-2 tsp chili paste
2 tsp fish sauce
1 TB brown sugar
Salt

Sides
Spanish rice & black beans

For the taco filling:

Dice the onion and squash into corn-sized pieces, the jalapenos a bit smaller, and cut the corn off the cob.  Melt butter in a skillet.  Add the onion and jalapeno, and cook over medium-low heat until they start to get soft.  (Don't let them start browning yet.)  When onions are getting soft, add squash and corn and spice with cumin, cayenne and salt.  Then just let it all cook until the veggies barely start to brown.

Meanwhile, put the head of garlic in the oven or toaster at 325 to soften it.  For the tomatoes, halve them and put them under the broiler to roast - keep your eye on them so they don't get too blackened.  Towards the end of the veggies' cooking time, peel the softened garlic and mash or chop it into the mix (depending how soft it is).

Serve each taco with 2 tomato halves, a scoop of filling, and feta.

For the slaw (served on the side or in the tacos):

Cut cucumbers (I had 3 small ones) into small slices.  Cut jalapeno and a small quantity of onion paper-thin.  Mix up the other ingredients in a bowl to dissolve sugar in lime juice, then toss everything together (putting them in a tupperware and shaking them up works well), adjusting quantities to taste.  Even better the next day.

Drop Biscuit Cobbler with Blackberries & Strawberries (Gluten Free)

Baking used to be something I did when I needed to be soothed. But this year, the things happening are beyond the edges of any kind of self-soothing. This year is full of things that make you unable to swallow anything for days, things that creep up and hit you just as you are relaxing into a meal, things that are wretched and disgusting and horrifying and make you drop the spoon and try not to choke on the back of your own throat.

And so I haven't baked since the holidays. 

This isn't a very good way to sell a recipe. I suppose we might all be better off right now if I had decided to gush about how baking is therapeutic, or given you a hyper-filtered photo of bubbling dough and oozing berries with a caption about making peace in the midst of grief and confusion. But though I've mustered a cobbler, I can't quite muster happy. This is all I've got. Everything is shitty but somehow I made a great cobbler. 

Gluten-Free Blackberry Strawberry Cobbler

As the NY Times informed us well over a week ago, the line between cobbler and buckle and crumble and all other bready desserts with baked fruit is fluid, even contentious. In my family, cobbler has historically been made with a batter that is poured over berries in a clean sheet, then baked into a thick, golden layer of pancake-like doughiness that invades the depths of the fruit underneath. 

This cobbler is different, topped instead with drop biscuits that form a raggedy, discontinuous crust that sinks down into the fruit but does not encase the berries. 

Ingredients

1 bag Pamela's Gluten Free Biscuit and Scone Mix* 

8 tablespoons cold butter

1 tablespoon honey

1-1/4 cup milk

*You can of course substitute any drop biscuit recipe here; you'll need 8-12 biscuits. If you are looking to make gfree drop biscuits from scratch, Shauna Ahern has several recipes on her site glutenfreegirl.com. 

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons gluten free flour (any kind, all purpose is best but others will be fine)

2 pints strawberries, tops removed and quartered

1.5 pints blackberries

Preheat your oven to 400 F. In a deep 9 inch baking dish (I used ceramic but glass is fine), toss your berries with 2/3 cup brown sugar and 2 tablespoons gluten free flour. Set aside. Prepare your drop biscuits following whatever recipe you are using. If you are using the Pamela's mix, this means using a pastry blender to cut in the butter until it forms pea-sized pieces, then incorporating the milk by hand. I added a little honey because I wasn't sure how sweet the dough was going to be. Drop biscuit-sized scoops onto the top of your berries--this can be quite haphazard--and bake for 25-30 minutes until berries are oozing and your biscuits are browned. Enjoy with vanilla ice cream. 

Fourth of July Pie

Last summer, I did a terrible thing. I made lots of pies and I never shared them on this little bloggy.

Luckily, it's never too late to share a recipe, so just in time for you to run to the store and get ingredients  to whip up the most fitting dessert for tomorrow's holiday (or, really, any holiday at all), I'll start to share them.

Last year on the Fourth I threw together a quick, easy and patriotic pie.  It's more giant-pile-of-berries-and-cream-and-crust that I made look pretty, but it's so worth it.  5 steps to messy, good-looking magic.

Ingredients:
1 pre-baked pie crust
Extra pie dough for cutouts
6 cups blueberries and strawberries, sugared (raspberries could work, too)
Whipping cream
Vanilla extract

The Steps:

1. Toss cleaned and hulled berries in sugar.
2. Whip up some cream. 
3. Pour berries into baked pie shell.
4. Top with whipped cream.
5. Cut out star shapes from extra dough, bake and coat with cinnamon sugar.  Place on whipped cream.

Happy 4th everyone!

Fava Beans with Tomatoes and Toasted Bread

It's confession time.

As the baby sister on this blog, I have an embarrassing childhood nickname to admit to (thanks to S, and her active childhood imagination) in order to fully explain the significance  of me eating beans tonight. The nickname, in its most basic form, was, well, Bean.

More of a name replacement than a nickname in actuality, throughout the years it received variations of Beanie, Beaners, Beanalise, and perhaps the most embarrassing as thought of by my HS XC coach, Beanalicious. My grandfather used to tell me to call my sisters Asparagus and Broccoli in retaliation, but they never had quite the same ring to them.

The only positive that embarrassed-kid-version-of-me found in this family name was that it could be used to bolster my arguments against certain foods and help me stubbornly hang on to my pickiness. If any form of bean were set in front of me, I would say"I can't eat that, it's cannibalism!" quite smugly.

I'm hear to share is because I, Beanalise, not only consumed beans tonight (gasp!) but also cooked them for myself.

it helps that the beans were in this delicious dish 

Of course, this recipe and trying of beans was not my own doing, like most of the dishes that have led to the demise of my finicky habits. (such as the salad my grandmother made me my freshman year of college), but was Katelyn's. I won't say that I am a fully converted bean-eater just yet, but this Bean has both spilled the (nickname) beans and eaten them. This dish is perfectly fresh, bright, flavorful, and filling.

(The simplicity of this recipe means I am going to share it in an equally simple form, as well as give an insight into how recipe sharing goes in this family- quick text messages about that-one-time-you-made-beans-and-I-actually-ate-them. Here's a screen shot, ha)